Friday, December 13, 2013

Visiting Santa

I didn't grow up believing in Santa Claus so this is a whole new territory to me.  We are letting the kids believe in him although I'm not trying hard to sell it to them :) 

 I remember when Kai was three, we said that Santa would leave him a gift at the front door because we had no chimney.  So I left a sprinkled donut, rang the doorbell and ran away.  Kai was very excited about the sprinkled donut but a little confused.  `Santa can't read?' he asked.  I was confused but then realized, our doorbell had the sign on it `Sleeping baby, do not ring'.  

Well, this year, Koen asked to meet Santa.  I did not feel like waiting in the mall line up and then paying $12 for a 4X6.  However, I heard about this Santa in Cloverdale that accepts donations for the Food Bank and then you can take your own pictures and it has NO LINE UP. 

Nya seemed excited saying `Santa!Santa!'.  When I asked if she would sit on Santa's lap, she said yes.  I told her to wear her Santa hat because Santa would like it and so she did.  Off we went.  Gary got Kai from school and we met there.  No line up. Awesome.  Each family gets to go in the house by themselves and the second we went in, Nya kind of freaked out.  

(This house is set up in the middle of a parking lot at 177th and 56th)

She has been a bit off lately (not even wanting Gary to hold her the past few days) so I don't want to force her to sit with some old man.   Koen was very excited.  He doesn't get nervous but he asked me, `What should I say to him?'  So he said, `Hi Santa, how are you?'.    Kai also is not 100% sure about Santa being real and I didn't ask him, but he was sure acting like this was the real Santa.  
We were reminded that we need to leave carrots for the reindeer!  I decided to try to put Nya on Kai's lap but...
she freaked out.  I picked her up right away because I didn't want her to be frightened.   I tried to hold her close to Santa and...
she didn't like that either.
The kids each got to pick out a dollar store gift and a candy cane.  We gave a donation to the food bank.  It was the perfect way for us to visit with Santa Claus.

The boys questions afterwards were: Why did Santa have a bunch of toys to give out already? Were they leftovers from last year?  Where were the reindeer? Shouldn't Santa be busy at the North Pole? 

On Wednesday night I went to Sears to return something and I saw all of their Christmas stuff 70% off already!  This gorgeous wooden advent calendar was regularly $49.99 and we already have an advent calendar but.....so ya, I bought it for $15.00 total. So great.  I should've bought more as gifts.  The kids have been having a BLAST on their advent activities; movie night with popcorn, make cookies, decorate cookies, walk around looking at lights, give cookies to our neighbours, go get a Christmas tree with Grandma and Grandpa etc.  I just  write things on paper and they cannot wait to see what's in there.  I have to admit that they also REALLY love their Lego calendar and wow, that thing is pretty amazing.

I'm very tired of the materialistic side of Christmas and hopefully the kids continue to be excited about family activities.   

Have a great weekend.
Love, Louise


2 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:40 PM

    love the pictures...so funny!! Made me laugh out loud for sure :)
    -Brianne

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love that advent calendar!!

    ReplyDelete